Jeremiah 31.31-34, John 12.20-33
The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 17 March 2021,
Austwick, Clapham
"When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." These words of Jesus were a mystery to his disciples when he spoke them, and we may find then mysterious today, even though we know what happened afterwards.
"When I am lifted up from the earth...." Why should a condemned man in a bleak corner of the Roman Empire hanging alongside nameless criminals become so celebrated forever afterwards?
"... I will draw all people to myself." What was it about what Jesus did which has caught the attention, the imagination, inspired the devotion, of people throughout the world?
"When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself." This is a bold claim for Jesus to make. People might tend to look away from a dying man on a cross, for it is a grisly scene of loss, a lamentable scene of failure. Jesus is claiming that his death would have opposite effect on people. How could he so confidently predict that his death would be the beginning of an astonishing alteration in human history?
Undeniably, history has proved him right. The crucified Jesus has drawn people to him ever since the day it happened, and we can safely assume, always will. With the hindsight of two thousand years, we can say that the crucifixion has had the profoundest impact on human history. The last words of Jesus in John's gospel, spoken from the Cross, are: "It is accomplished." A more accurate translation would be, "It has been brought to completion" But what exactly is accomplished? What is brought to fulfilment? Is this an ending, or a beginning, or somehow both? Let's listen again to what Jesus said: "Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself”.
Jesus is teaching how the cross heralds the judgement of the world. At Calvary, the light of the crucified Christ shines brightly on the powers of darkness in the world. This event opens the eyes of the world to see the weakness and emptiness of evil in comparison to the strength and completeness of good, and in this way the Crucified One gradually draws all of humanity to himself. As Rudolf Schnackenburg put it, at Calvary, "The ruler of the world encounters the final rejection, loses his sphere of influence, becomes powerless - over those who look up in faith to the crucified Jesus and let themselves be 'drawn' to him.” [2]
According to John, the crucifixion begins a slow movement which will eventually fill the world with the light and love of Christ. And the driving force of this movement is the "Spirit of Truth”. This Spirit of Truth changed the hearts of Jesus' disciples at the crucifixion and in the days that followed it. They were a scared and scattered group of people, but the Spirit brought them back together and replaced their fears with pure joy. And that same Spirit gradually made that same change throughout the whole of history, over and over again, in the hearts of men and women everywhere who were drawn to Jesus. Who is this Spirit?
The word John uses for the Spirit means a "counsellor" or “advocate." That is a legal term meaning one who defends the "accused one." The gospels call Satan ‘the accuser’, whose work is to set people against each other, the self-righteous against those they condemn, that old and terrible human activity of strengthening our own group by scapegoating innocent people. In contrast, we might call God ‘the chooser’ - for God chooses to accept and love all people unconditionally. Nothing about who we are or what we have done matters to God - he chooses to love us all.
Jesus saw the way that the world worked - with the self-righteous holding on to their own place in the world by creating and condemning disposable victims. People in the grip of the "accuser" would continue to drown out the victim's voice with their myths and chants and slogans. Crucify him! Crucify him! Lock her up! Stop his benefit! Silence their protests! Send them all back home!
But Jesus taught that ‘I will send the Advocate to you. And when he comes, he will show the world how wrong it was, about sin, about who was in the right, and about judgement.’ [3] Jesus, the ultimate victim revealed, from the cross, that from that moment onward, the Spirit would begin to help the victim's voice be heard above the violent language which Satan makes sound like righteousness. Jesus’ voice - the victim's voice - released the Spirit to begin showing the world how wrong it is about sin and judgement, and to gradually lead humanity towards truth.
Martin Luther King is quoted as saying that ‘The arc of history bends towards justice’. Meaning that despite all the violence and injustice in the world, society’s moral awareness and moral values are progressing towards good. ‘The arc of history bends towards justice’. The gospel message suggests that the force which set that arc in motion is the force which Christ released at Easter. [4]
It’s a feature of our culture that more and more, victims’ voices are being heard above the noise of those who try to silence them. The once unlistened-to are getting their point across: women damaged by male violence, the descendants of slaves still being treated inhumanely by those who will not regard them as equals, the disabled, the poor, the Palestinians: each bringing to light buried, uncomfortable truths about the way our world really works. Building understanding, growing empathy. Opening up spaces for healthier relationships. Is this the Spirit’s power at work today? [5]
Jesus' crucifixion loosened the grip of Satan’s lies on the human imagination. Without the crucifixion we would still be living under the spell of ‘the accuser’, ’the father of lies'. It’s like that moment when the first astronauts showed the world the pictures of this planet they had taken from the moon, and some myths about our planet just could not be believed any more. It's not flat, it's round, for instance; the continents look different from up there.
The crucifixion had exactly the same effect as those first photos from space, only with even greater significance. This innocent man on the gallows would become the greatest story ever told - greater than all the lies that Satan has poured into human ears since the beginning.
Clearly Satan's lies still have influence in our world. The Accuser is still working in us that instinct to condemn others as a way of solving or avoiding our own problems, just as Caiaphas and Pilate, encouraged by the crowd, condemned Jesus as a way of solving and avoiding theirs. But the greatest thing is that the Spirit is also still at work, gradually, slowly but surely, drawing all people to Jesus and his ways. On the cross Jesus defeated death. Afterwards, and now, for all who come to him, there is only life.
Notes
[1] A rewrite of John 12 - "I will draw all people to myself”, preached in Croxteth, 2006, and preached online during lockdown in March 2021. It draws heavily on an extract from Gil Bailie, Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads p. 226, as quoted in Paul Nuechterlein, Girardian Lectionary, Notes on The Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year B.
[2] Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John, 2, p.392
[3] John 16.7-8.
[4] Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, Commencement Address for Oberlin College, June 1965, Oberlin, Ohio. Oxford Reference, Who is Quoted? cites the original source for King's words as an 1853 sermon by Theodore Parker.
[5] Molly Blackall, 'I've been quiet too long': reflections on the death of Sarah Everard. Guardian, 15 March 2021. Maya Wolfe-Robinson and Vikram Dodd, Institutional misogyny 'erodes women's trust in UK police’. Guardian, 16 March 2021; Harsha Walia, Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism; Church Action on Poverty, This outrageous, counter-productive Budget marginalises people with least, March 2024; Mahmoud Mustaha, Survivors of Gaza aid convoy massacre describe ‘indiscriminate’ Israeli fire, +972 Magazine, 5 March 2024.
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